


Verdant

by Bearfeat



Series: Spectrum [5]
Category: Ghost (Swedish Band)
Genre: F/M, Fake Leather Chairs, Frustration, Loneliness, Where did you put them fingers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7117324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bearfeat/pseuds/Bearfeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papa made it a habit to show up whenever he wanted - or not show up at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verdant

A year ago, I had found this chair in a thrift shop, two blocks away and hidden between a Chinese supermarket and a rarely visited ice cream parlor. The chair was coated with fake brown leather, cracked and ripped up in various places. It wasn’t pretty. There was this vague smell that belonged to somebody else’s house, somebody else’s cooking and cleaning products. But when I sat in it, I felt how much it was supposed to belong to me. It hugged my back and took all the tension, that I had built up sitting in the wrong chairs in the wrong ways while pursuing my vision of becoming a writer, away from my body.

 

I had dragged it home for two blocks by myself. It was too big to pick up and carry, so I had to lift up one side, kick the bottom of that side forward and repeat this for the other side. By the time I was home (praise the fucking lord the elevator worked that day) the aching in my back was worse than ever, but I didn’t care. Because when I had planted the chair by my writing desk, I sat in it and felt all the pain disappear.

 

It was the same chair I had been living in the past week. After all my deadlines were fulfilled and my employer practically forced me to take up my vacation days, because surely I could find something fun to do while half of my friends were still on vacation and the other half working their asses off to catch _their_ deadlines, I just sat there. As I felt summer approaching, I kept my curtains shut. There was no need to let more heat in here. I would sleep well into the day, move to my chair just to feel gross as the fake leather stuck to my sweaty body, try to write something, fall into the pit of the internet, make myself something easy to eat and finally drink a couple of glasses of wine to be able to sleep in my depressingly empty bed.

 

It had been so long since I had touched another human being intimately. I didn’t go out anymore to meet new people. And for fucks sakes, Ghost had been playing in this state, but apparently, Emeritus hadn’t felt the need to come by. At least I had my little job on the side at the theater to get me out of the house.

 

 

Another night at the theater, another night drawing beers and pouring drinks for dull, uninteresting people. If I didn’t need the money, I’d quit. Every time I looked to the stage I felt a pang of disappointment. Bands used to excite me, music used to lift me up, but now, my heart had grown needy and no new voices could interest me anymore. How the fuck could this be happening to me? I mean, _me_? I used to breathe music, indifferent to genre or style. The last few weeks of loneliness had made me addicted and numb, and I started to get the feeling Emeritus was fucking with my head. Which was the exact opposite of understanding what it meant to be a groupie. I should have just been happy for the attention I had gotten. Be there, I thought, on the nights I got home from work. I would hold my breath. But my apartment would be empty.

 

Yes, of course I hoped my lack of Papa was because he had pointed his full attention towards Omega, and I hoped the two were very happy together and fucking each other’s brains out, but Papa wasn’t a one-woman-guy. Or rather, a one-guy-guy. Papa Emeritus III was a sex-oozing beast, determined to fuck or be fucked by everything he set his mind to. And I guessed that mind was no longer set on me. For lack of a better expression: I had been ghosted.

 

I didn’t want to work at the theater anymore, seeing the stage, smelling the theatrical smoke. I didn’t want to walk past the dressing rooms anymore. I didn’t want to sneak inside _that_ room, hearing my colleagues sweep the floor and clean the bar in the distance, feeling tears burn my eyes as I pressed my back to the wall.

 

 

‘Ghuleh…’ a gloved hand, adorned with golden nails, softly stroked my cheek. My breath hitched in my chest. I didn’t want to look up, scared that my imagination was playing tricks on me and nobody would be there.

The hand moved under my chin and softly tilted my head up. It _must_ be imagination, I thought, seeing the black and purple robes of the antipope costume, the crazy detail in every button, the golden miter. It would be sick to believe he was actually here, I thought, as his white eye peered through me. It would be sick to believe- his green eye was looking into mine, tenderly taking in the redness around my eyes, the result of fighting back tears. And then I almost felt ashamed I was about to cry over this man.

 

‘Where the FUCK have you been?’ I pushed his hand away from my face, but held it still mid-air. I balled my hand around his fingers.

‘Goddammit, Papa.’ I sighed. He pulled me into an embrace.

‘Hmmm you smell exquisite, my darling.’ He nuzzled my hair.

‘Fuck you!’ I said, ready to push him away and really give him a piece of my mind, but the golden nails on his gloves were drawing circles between my shoulder blades.

 

‘You’ve been away for too long.’ I mumbled in his cloak.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes, I am.’

I realized how it didn’t matter if that was the truth or not.

‘Are you coming home with me?’

He was silent.

‘Please?’

‘I just needed to know if you were alright.’

‘I’m not.’

 

Papa loosened his grip on me and pushed me back by the shoulders to look at me. He raised an eyebrow.

‘I was afraid you didn’t want me anymore.’ I said softly.

‘Darrrrling’ his ‘r’s rolled a couple of extra beats. He sounded like a purring cat. ‘I will never stop wanting you.’

I felt the anger pool away and then rise two or three times while holding his gaze.

 

‘You are pondering whether you’ll forgive me or not?’ He said, smirking.

‘Yes.’

He let go of my shoulders, still smirking that devil smirk.

‘When you’ve decided, please tell me.’

The long, golden nails made a soft scratching sound over the fabric of the miter when he lifted it off his head. He held it in his hands. His hair seemed untouched. And then he just stood there, making me forget why I was angry in the first place.

 

 -

 

I helped Papa into his robes. The fabric was heavier than it seemed, and it took some effort lifting it over his head and then draping it around his shoulders until it fell down his body the right way. I tried to fashion his hair back into the right shape, but it didn’t really work. I had made sure it was fucked up thoroughly.

He took my face in his hands and placed his forehead against mine. We were warm, closer than I felt in a long time. We smelled of each other. His ears were blushing bright red. I imagined my face looked the same.

 

‘You cannot make me wait that long again.’ I said. ‘You can’t.’

‘I promise you I’ll be back soon, _bella_.’

We looked at each other and after a while he placed a salty kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes. Then his touch was gone and I heard the rushing of his robes. I looked to see him turn on the doorstep. We shared a moment where he looked me up and down and when he reached my eyes again, shook his head in admiration. He sighed and slowly licked his index finger, his middle finger and his ring finger before putting on his gloves and disappearing in the corridor.

 

I rushed to the door, but I didn’t expect to see him when I looked down the long hallway. ‘That’s a rather radical example of making things right.’ I softly said to myself as I straightened my underwear and quickly made my way back to the stage floor, hoping my coworkers didn’t think anything of me staying away for so long.


End file.
